


so, kiss me (beneath the milky twilight)

by SmilinStar



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: 5+1 Fic, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Festive fic, mistletoe hijinks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-29
Updated: 2017-12-29
Packaged: 2019-02-23 16:43:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13194300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SmilinStar/pseuds/SmilinStar
Summary: Or five times the Legends find themselves under mistletoe . . .





	so, kiss me (beneath the milky twilight)

**Author's Note:**

> This is an AU – canon divergent. Martin is not dead. Jax is still part of the team. Mallus and the Darhks are dead. And the world is as it should be. 
> 
> For the Time Canary family. I hope you like it! :-)

 

 

 

1.

 

The first time it happens, he doesn’t think too much of it.

A stray sprig of mistletoe hanging innocently in the doorway leading into the galley.

It’s odd, though. Rip doesn’t remember it being there when he stumbled in here this morning. But then he’s never been at his most perceptive when bleary-eyed and sleep-deprived. And naturally, his overwhelming need for a cup of tea had taken precedent over taking stock of the Waverider holiday decorations, and so it hadn’t even registered.

Not until Sara walks in ten minutes after him, clearly having finished her morning workout, and blithely points it out. With her cheeks flushed, and eyes bright from the adrenaline coursing through her, she’s clearly the more awake of the two.

“Good morning, Captain Lance,” he says in greeting, raising his ‘keep calm and carry on’ mug to his lips – a piece of crockery not of his own choosing, but funnily enough it’s the only one he can find these days.

“Morning,” she says, pointing a thumb behind her as she heads for the coffee machine and adding as if it’s nothing at all; “so that wasn’t there yesterday.”

He’s a bit slow on the uptake.

“What wasn’t there?”

It’s Ray who answers him. He enters just a short moment after Sara arrives and there’s a big, excitable grin on his face as he stops in the doorway, looks up and exclaims, “Hey, look! Mistletoe!”

Rip jerks his head up and looks at the offending piece of foliage.

Sara brushes behind him as she comes around the table. A whiff of her shampoo reaches his nose and he notices her hair is still wet from her shower, leaving damp patches on her t-shirt. She settles down on the other side of the table, toast in hand, and he wonders why she didn’t go the other way around – the one that had no obstructions, i.e. _him,_ sitting in the way.

“So, Rip, who were you hoping to catch under it?” she asks him, and there’s a familiar teasing glint in her blue eyes.

It takes a moment for the insinuation to sink in, before he splutters indignantly, “That was certainly not my doing!”

She hums, teeth biting into toast and he most definitely doesn’t let his gaze linger on her mouth.

“Of course not,” she says then.

And it’s the way she says it, so matter-of-factly, that has him frowning back at her, shifting forwards on his seat, feeling both irritated and slighted. As if she means to add his lack of enthusiasm for the holiday season to his endless list of shortcomings.

She notices the expression on his face, drops her toast to her plate, and shrugs, “I’m just saying, makes sense.”

She doesn’t elaborate and Rip wonders just what exactly she means.

That it makes sense he’s not overly effusive about Christmas? Or that the sight of mistletoe makes him blush in mortification?

He ignores the reasons for the latter, says instead, “Well, I’ve had no cause for getting into the holiday spirit for the last several years.”

And as his meaning sinks in, Sara’s smile disappears and now he really does feel like Scrooge. He knows she didn’t mean anything by it, and he doesn’t mean to bring the mood down with his own melancholy thoughts, but the sight of Sara Lance’s now sad eyes is too much for him.

He stands up then, mutters an excuse about having work to do and heads for the door, her gaze burning into his back as he goes.

It’s only when he gets to the exit, he realises Ray’s blocking it. Still standing there, grinning widely under the mistletoe, just _waiting_. For anyone, apparently. Horror dawns, and before Ray can even pucker his lips and say, ‘Merry Christmas!’, Rip is ducking out of the way to leave, knocking shoulders with Mr Rory just as he walks in.

Rip doesn’t hang around to witness the spectacle.

He later hears Dr Palmer ends up with the heatgun pressed against his forehead and a red-faced, Mr Rory, growling in his face:

_“Sorry to break it to you, Haircut, but you’re not my type!”_

 

 

 

2.

 

The second time the mistletoe pops up unexpectedly, Sara doesn’t notice it straightaway.

Her mind too occupied on the man hiding away in the library, instead.

She knows he hasn’t been there the entire time, but a quick check with Gideon and she knows that he’s been in there long enough to worry. Especially when there are no magic-wielding villains left to destroy and no anachronisms left to fix. They haven’t had a real mission in weeks, and so Rip’s clearly lying about doing ‘research’.

He’s always been a brilliant liar.

But he has been getting better about speaking the truth about things that actually matter.

It’s been two days since her misstep at breakfast. She hadn’t meant anything by it. Not really. But it was as she watched his face fall, the mask coming down and she’d seen _that look_ in his eyes, that she realised what she’d implied.

And she’d felt sick to her stomach.

A little like how she feels at the sight of Rip sitting behind the desk, as the door to the library slides open.

He’s not even pretending to be busy with so-called research.

There are no books piled in front of him.

No. Only a familiar pocket-watch in hand, and that same haunted look she’d hoped she’d seen the last of the day Vandal Savage met his long overdue demise.

“Hey,” she says softly.

He startles at her voice, head jerking up as his right hand snaps the watch shut.

And it’s such a familiar sight, it makes her heart ache. A deep, steady, pulsing kind of ache that leeches out from the centre of her chest to the tips of her fingers and toes like red paint being blown through a straw over paper.

“Sara,” he says, sitting upright, voice rough from his self-exiled silence. He clears his throat, and tries again. “Sorry, Captain Lance, I didn’t hear you come in.”

“I noticed,” she says, walking up to him, and stopping at the corner of the desk, hand coming down on a small glass paperweight. Her finger runs over the smooth surface, her silver filigreed ring scraping loud against the glass with the movement.

She looks up at him, and is surprised to find him looking back.

His eyes are a sparkling, warm shade of green in this lighting, and it’s her favourite of them all.

“What’s going on, Rip?”

It’s too much to hope he’ll come outright and say it. So, it doesn’t surprise her when he smiles wryly and gestures to the empty desk. “Nothing. Quite literally.”

The disappointment must be evident on her face as he sighs, deep and heavy, “I just needed a little solitude Sara, it’ll pass.”

“Like it did for the past two days? Or the five years before that? Or however many years you were flying alone out here in the Waverider before we came along?”

He looks away and she moves around the table, perching herself on the edge just beside him, before pushing back so that her legs swing freely beneath her.

“Look, Rip. I’m sorry about what I said that day. I didn’t think, and I didn’t mean to bring up painful memories for you. Of course this time of the year is hard for you-”

“You have nothing to apologise for,” he interrupts, eyes back on hers. He leans forward, hand coming to rest on the desk beside her thigh. “I was being a touch oversensitive. And you’re also wrong about the memories, Sara. They’re not painful. Not anymore.”

“And that,” she says, filling in the rest, because she’s always understood him the best, just as he understands her, “is making you feel guilty.”

He purses his lips, acknowledges it with a sigh as he falls back again in his chair.

“I know how you feel,” she says quietly.

“Laurel,” he says, just as gently.

She nods, hands dropping to curl around the edge of the desk, knuckles turning white as she digs in.

She feels his little finger brush up against hers where his hand rests, and wonders how long before he flinches away.

But he doesn’t.

He covers her hand with his own instead; a warm comforting presence, that makes her heart turn in her chest.

“She wouldn’t want you to feel like that,” he says.

She retorts in kind. “They wouldn’t want you to feel like that either.”

By the flicker of his lips, she thinks he’d been expecting that.

She follows her gaze up from his mouth and finds him staring back at her. There’s something different in his look now. Something _more_ , and she half wants to lean down into him and find out just how much more, but then the sound of Jax yelling down the corridor outside has her jerking back.

_“Dammit man! This isn’t funny!”_

They share a quick glance of ‘what now?’ and hurry out the library.

Sara comes to a stop – Rip not far behind her – at the sight of Jax caught under another sneaky sprig of mistletoe in the middle of the Waverider corridor.

And the person beside him?

An unimpressed, disinterested and unflappable, Zari.

“Oh come on,” Nate grins, “it’s a little bit funny.”

“Nope,” Zari says, “not seeing the funny side.”

“I’m with both Jefferson and Miss Tomaz, Dr Heywood. This is a little juvenile, even for you!” Martin adds from the side-lines.

“ _Even for me_?” Nate repeats dumbly, offended. “Hey, I didn’t-”

“Anyway,” Zari says over the top of them both, “I don’t even believe in this superstitious crap. I’m outta here.”

“Uh no you don’t,” Nate jumps in front of her, blocking her path, “it’s not superstitious crap, it’s _tradition._ ”

Zari rolls her eyes. Snaps out a “fine”, before turning to Jax, who stares back at her with widening eyes.

She takes them all by surprise when she lifts his hand and kisses the back of it with a showy flourish and then promptly leaves.

Nate grins inanely.

Jax, Sara thinks, would probably be blushing right now if he could, because of course he’s harbouring a crush on their newest recruit. They all freaking are.

And so she can’t help but tease, “Aww, Jax. You’ve been waiting for this all week, haven’t you? Tell me how long were you camped out here under the mistletoe?”

He glares back at her. “Shut up.”

She laughs, and she swears there’s a smile on Rip’s face too.

And this, she thinks, is what the holidays are all about.

_Family._

 

 

 

3.

 

The third time the mistletoe makes an appearance, Rip thinks he’s being mocked.

By fate.

By the universe.

Or, more likely, by one of his beloved team members.

He knows it must be one of them – hanging up mistletoe in random spots of the Waverider, all with the sole aim of creating havoc and chaos, and upsetting the delicate equilibrium of relationships onboard – it has all the hallmarks of a good old Legends prank.

But then maybe it’s not about that.

Maybe it’s simply to embarrass and to torture.

 _Him_ , specifically.

He really should have turned tail and walked away as soon as he heard them.

It’s just as he reaches the training room that he hears Amaya.

“Oh no,” she says, and it’s the tone of her voice, together with those two words, that make him stop. Panic instinctively thrums under his skin because it’s _them_ , and they never could outrun trouble, even if it is the holiday season and they deserve a reprieve.

“What’s wrong?” Sara asks.

“Up there.”

“Huh.” Sara sounds genuinely confused, and as Rip peers around the corner – breath caught painfully in his lungs – he spots them at the far end. Punching bag still swaying lightly, mats on the floor still imprinted with tread marks from their trainers as Sara unwraps the tape from her hands. “I swear that wasn’t there when I came in.”

“Something is definitely going on. Third time in one week.”

Rip doesn’t need to follow their gaze upwards – with a sinking feeling, falling like a barrel full of lead to the bottom of the ocean – he knows exactly what the two of them are standing under.

“Something’s up, alright,” Sara agrees.

And then he sees it flicker across Miss Jiwe’s face. A little bit of intrigue with a mix of resolve as she steps forward to Sara, and he really wishes he could unglue his feet right now as a different kind of panic builds.

Sara cottons on quick, and her next words surprise him. “Oh relax,” she says on a laugh, waving it away, “no one’s here anyway, we don’t need to-”

“But it’s _tradition_ ,” Amaya says.

And then Sara’s grinning in that way that she does, full of life and laughter, and most of all, mischief, and is stepping towards her.

He leaves just as their lips meet.

He argues it’s because he feels like an interloper, and that he also has no taste for voyeurism, and therefore has no place standing there in this moment. He tells himself it has nothing to do with the sick feeling curling in his gut at the thought of Sara Lance kissing anyone else that isn’t . . .

He doesn’t finish the sentence in his head, disappears down the corridor, feet heavy and loud on the metal. So much for making a subtle getaway.

He swears he faintly hears someone call out his name behind him, but he doesn’t turn back to look.

 

 

 

4.

 

The fourth time mistletoe looms over their heads, Sara’s okay with it not being over hers.

Time to share the love around, she thinks.

Though none of it’s for one particular member of the team. One particularly infuriating and obstinate member of the team, who’s been chipping away at all of her defences for the past four years.

She hears it from Jax.

Of all the ridiculous things to happen, the man electrocutes himself on his own damn jump ship while trying to do some (okay, yes, much-needed) rewiring. But as Jax tells it, it was a two-person job, but the _idiot_ just had to try and do it himself!

Of all the reckless, stupid things to do.

“Dammit Rip!” she mutters under her breath, before asking, “Is he ok?”

“Well,” Jax starts cautiously, and it’s enough for her to immediately spin on her heels and head for the med bay.

She barely hears Jax call after her, “Sara! Gray says he’ll be fine! It’s really not that bad!”

Well, apparently, it’s bad enough that the electric shock knocked him out cold, and he’s sporting a nasty looking burn on his right hand.

She reaches the med bay just as Martin attaches the line to his arm and Gideon takes over, displaying his vitals on the screen.

Sara’s no medic, but she takes some comfort in noticing the numbers aren’t flashing red. Even she knows that’s a good thing, but it still does nothing for the anger burning under her skin at his still form.

She keeps an eye on the rise and fall of his chest as she settles onto the empty examination chair beside him. Martin finally notices her there a short moment later as he looks up from Rip’s bedside.

“Captain Lance,” he says, “it seems you’ve heard about Mr Hunter’s accident then? I suppose it was Jefferson that tattled.”

“Tattled? I’m the Captain of this ship, I _should_ be told when a member of _my_ team gets injured!”

“Yes, that’s true. But then I don’t think Mr Hunter would have wanted you to worry, not when there’s nothing to really worry about . . .”

His attitude is surprising, not something she would have expected from the professor, and from the way he trails off at the end, it seems he knows just how she’ll take those words. And the answer is: _not well_.

She’s fuming, and maybe it’s a disproportionate response given the fact she’s being told Rip is _fine_ and will make a full recovery.

Even Gideon pipes up to tell her the same; “If it helps Captain Lance, I believe the Professor is correct. Captain Hunter should be rousing in the next few minutes.”

But despite that she can’t help but feel mad.

It feels a lot like Rip’s tendencies to be so careless with his own life have yet to abate. That he still hasn’t learnt that there are people who care about what happens to him. And god knows, he’s screwed up enough times, that he wouldn’t blame them if they didn’t.

But they care.

_She cares._

Sara doesn’t answer either of them, watches Rip instead as his head shifts just slightly, lips part and a low groan escapes them as he squeezes his eyes tight before blinking them open. The bright overhead lights have him shutting them again almost instantly as he turns his head in her direction.

She resists the urge to go to him.

Martin goes around to the other side as he calls out, “Welcome back Mr Hunter, you had a bit of a nasty electric shock there.”

“Feels like it,” Rip croaks out, before attempting to open his eyes again. “Bloody hell that hurts.”

“Good,” Sara spits out.

His eyes find hers and they’re still glassy with pain, so she doesn’t know exactly what he’s seeing. He hears her just fine though. “Sara?”

“What the hell were you thinking? You couldn’t have waited for Jax?!”

He offers no apology ( _the asshole_ ), and says instead, “needed to be done.”

She scoffs, shakes her head, but he’s no longer looking in her direction. He turns back, eyes on the ceiling and it’s only a second before he’s groaning out loudly, “oh for goodness sake!”

“What?”

He doesn’t answer her, but then his frozen gaze gives it to her. Martin sees it just as she does.

Freaking mistletoe. Again.

“Oh dear.”

There’s a flicker of embarrassment on the older man’s face but it’s gone before it registers.

“Professor, there is really no need . . .”

Rip’s words trail off as Martin leans over him and presses a fatherly kiss to the crown of his head. He steps back and pats his shoulder as he does. “Please take care and try not to do that again, Rip. We’re only just getting used to having you back.”

Rip wordlessly nods and there’s an emotion brewing in her chest at the sight. Warm and heavy and her eyes sting with the threat of tears. She looks away and blinks once, twice. She feels, rather than sees, Martin walk past her squeezing her shoulder this time as he goes.

Looking back at the ceiling, she’s relieved to see the professor has taken the mistletoe with him, but even then, she hesitates to step closer.

She swallows down her emotions and calls out, “Rip?”

He’s looking back at her now, and from the glistening green of his eyes, she thinks finally he’s getting it.

Rip Hunter may be a goddamn mess. But he’s their mess.

And he’s loved.

“Don’t ever do that again.”

“What? Try and keep the Waverider in working order? Carry out essential jump ship maintenance? Then _how_ dear Captain do you expect us to keep flying?”

There’s the beginnings of a smirk on his lips and the sight has her shaking her head.

“Don’t even, or I’ll get Gideon to use the Defib on you right now.”

He huffs out a laugh. “Somehow, Captain Lance. I very much doubt that you would.”

And to be fair, he’s definitely got her there.

 

 

 

5.

 

The fifth time, is the last bloody time.

He doesn’t spot it like all those times before, not until it’s too late.

They still hadn’t caught the culprit behind the mistletoe guerrilla attacks, and Rip had made it a point to be extra vigilant for any glimpses of the parasitic, poisonous excuse of a plant anywhere in his vicinity, at all times.

Except on this occasion.

He gets swept away in the holiday spirit, as the Legends throw themselves a well-deserved party. It’s hard to know what the exact date is, here in the middle of the time stream, but he figures it’s close enough. And with the Waverider dressed to the nines, and the music blaring, the alcohol flowing, the constant chatter and good-natured teasing, it’s easy to believe it’s that time of the year.

He’s full to the brim with food and fondness for the people around him, veins humming with the feeling of satiety, although admittedly that could also be the whiskey. There’s also the odd ache in his cheeks and he doesn’t know what it is. Not until Jax points it out.

The younger man steps up beside him as Rip stands there, leaning back against the kitchen counter, observing the room. There’s a grin on Jax’s lips, beer bottle in hand and Santa hat sitting askew on his head. “It’s good to see you smiling, man.”

“Is that what I’m doing, Mr Jackson?” he teases with an eyebrow raise.

Jax shakes his head, still smiling as he pulls him into a surprising hug, clapping him on the back as he does.

It takes a second to realise what’s happening, and another before he reaches up and returns the hug, patting his shoulder.

“I’m glad you’re back where you belong,” he says then, and Rip finds himself swallowing the sudden lump in his throat as he nods.

It’s been said before, by numerous members of the team, but it must be the sentimentality of the season that gets to him as he barely manages to reply; “Me too.”

Jax moves away then, tips the neck of his bottle towards Rip’s face and says, “It suits you.”

“Yeah it does,” says another voice.

They both look up to see Sara approach them, her own head adorned with reindeer antlers, and a spare Santa hat in hand.

“Hey, Captain,” Jax grins at her, giving her a brief hug and a flicker of a glance between the two of them. There’s a look on his face, together with _that_ smile, that has Rip shifting uncomfortably against the counter. Doesn’t help when he disappears with a not so subtle, “I’ll leave you two to it.”

“Rip,” Sara says then with a smile as she takes Jax’s spot beside him.

He responds in kind, “Sara.”

Her smile widens at that, and he has to look away and back at the rest of the room for fear of blurting out words he really shouldn’t say.

Words like “you’re beautiful.”

_Amongst others._

And she really does look beautiful. She wears happiness the best of them all.

“I was half thinking you’d shut yourself away in your quarters,” she says then, and he can feel her eyes on him.  

“And what?” he replies easily, “Live up to my ‘bah humbug’ reputation? Sorry to disappoint.”

She snorts, and he’s glad she can tell he’s not offended in the slightest. Not this time.

“No, not a disappointment,” she says softly then. “I’m glad you’re here.”

And he can’t not look at her when she says something like that, and so he twists himself in her direction, and says once more, “Me too.”

There’s a moment then, long and filled with something, building towards a precipice where they’ll either fly or fall, and it feels a little too much, too fast. Sara must sense the impending retreat because she holds up the hat in her hand then with an impish grin, breaking the spell.

“No,” he refuses flatly.

“Oh come on, it’ll look good on you!”

And heaven help him, she’s pouting.

“Fine,” he relents, embarrassingly easy, as he lowers his head just a fraction as she lifts herself onto her tiptoes and places the hat on his head. Her fingers skim over the short hairs at the back of his neck, ghosting over his warm skin before she settles back down onto the balls of her feet.

It’s then that she looks up, and freezes with a sharp inhale of breath.

And somehow, he knows exactly what’s happening, and as Mr Rory’s gruff and amused voice carries clearly across the din, it’s all the confirmation he needs.

“Hey, look what we have here! Two captains under the mistletoe. About damn time!”

There’s the sudden silence that follows his words, and the entire rooms’ eyes are on them. He doesn’t have to turn around to face them to know their expressions are probably more than a little smug.

It’s a blind panic that seizes him when his gaze lands on the fullness of her lips, and the terror must be all over his face. He knows this only because as his eyes trace their way up her face, and catch her own, there’s that sad look lost in the blue again. Sad and disappointed, and it makes no sense.

And he’s not given the luxury of time to figure it out, because just like that, the shutters come down, and she’s shrugging her shoulders and smirking back at him.

“Hey, it could be worse, right?”

And there’s something so heart-breaking about her smile that he feels it like a dagger in his own chest and the pain renders him mute. He’ll later look back on this moment and wish he’d said something, _anything_ ; done more than stand there like a gaping fool.

Sara doesn’t prolong the torture though. Simply sighs, leans up again and presses her lips to his cheek this time, lingering there at the corner of his mouth long enough for it to mean something, before pulling back.

“Merry Christmas, Rip,” she whispers, and walks away and out of the room.

He feels rather bereft standing there.

Like he’s just missed something momentous.

(Like Sara Lance’s bleeding heart in his hands.)

The gazes from around the room haven’t left him. Disappointed now and no longer amused. And he only needs the sight of Mr Rory shaking his head, and calling him a “dumbass” into his beer can to know that he’s just messed up.

Terribly.

He picks up an abandoned glass of whiskey on the counter and swallows.

It burns the whole way down.

 

 

 

+.

 

If there’s one thing Sara hates, it’s feeling stupid.

And she feels it now. So fucking stupid.

For a moment, she’d believed.

But then one look at his horror-stricken face and she’d realised that no, she’d been imagining it all along.

The lingering looks with the blazing green gaze; the half smiles imprinted on her mind – the ones she’d always thought were meant for her, and for her alone; and of course, the growing feeling that of all those who came before, he was the one who _saw_ her.

All of her.

Every last bit; from the fear hiding in the monster, to the budding, struggling shoot striving for sunlight. And he didn’t judge her for any of it.

But of course, it doesn’t mean anything.

Not what she’d thought it did anyway.

The party is long over, and the team have dispersed. She assumes Stein was probably one of the first to leave, hoping to read his grandkid their nightly bedtime story through the miracles of technology. She imagines Mick abandoned the party once the alcohol had run dry, because yes, she had put a limit on the fabricator’s alcohol output. For _all_ their sakes. And the rest, she has no idea what they got up to once she’d made her exit.

All she does know is that they left the galley in a state if Gideon’s barely disguised complaints are anything to go by.

“I’ll deal with it in the morning,” she tells their trusty AI as she slips under her bed covers.

And by ‘deal with it’, she means ‘deal with them.’

And despite herself, there’s one person she can’t lump in with the rest, even if she doesn’t know what happened to him after their mortifying encounter under the mistletoe.

There’s another thing to add to her to-do list: finally figure out who their mistletoe renegade is, and then make their life a living hell for the next year _at least_.

It’s thoughts of vengeance fuelled by her desire not to think of _him_ that has her restless and unable to sleep.

3am is when she finally gives up and gets out of bed; and with nowhere else to go, she resorts to old habits and finds herself making her way to her office.

And, of course.

_There he is._

(Like part of her knew he would be.)

Sitting in his favourite armchair, sipping on his damn scotch like the beautiful, broody bastard he is.

She hesitates at the doorway; in two minds about which way to go. But Sara Lance is many things and a coward is not one of them.

And so she takes a steadying breath and walks in. Doesn’t look at him as she heads straight for the decanter and pours herself her own drink, before turning around and pressing back into the desk.

He’s not looking at her, gaze fixed instead on the amber liquid he swirls in his glass, and that just makes her feel a whole lot worse. Like they’ve been here before and nothing has changed.

Though _everything_ has.

She waits for him to say something. Anything.

But he doesn’t.

And it should be _him_.

Because damn it. _And damn him._

She knows she hasn’t been misreading the signs.

She can’t even bring herself to take a sip of her drink. She drops it back on the table with a loud thud and makes to leave.

Because she can’t do this – be here, with him.

She thought she could, but she can’t.

It’s then that she feels it. Just as she’s passing him; warm fingers grabbing hold of her bare wrist, the soft sound of her name leaving his lips as he too drops his glass and stands up.

Sara resists the urge to pull away, eyes lingering on his fingers where they rest, prints burning into her skin and memory as she waits.

“Sara,” he breathes out again, and he’s so close she can feel the words blistering hot across her skin, “I’m sorry.”

And just like that, she’s plunged fifty feet in Arctic ice and she pulls her arm away from his grasp as she says, voice hard and unyielding, “Me too.”

She moves to leave again but then Rip’s letting out a sigh of deep frustration, muttering a “no, that’s not what I meant – _Sara_ . . .” and her mind can’t even process what he means, because he’s grabbing hold of her waist, spinning her around, lips crashing to hers and then he’s _kissing her._

One of his hands curves around her waist and pulls her closer; the other coming up to cradle her face as long fingers tangle in her hair. The shock of the moment gives way to the heat of his lips on hers and then she’s kissing him back with just as much, until they’re both gasping for air, and he’s the first that has to pull back.

His cheeks are flushed, and he’s out of breath, and she knows she’s not faring much better. His gaze lingers on her lips, pupils blown wide around a ring of molten golden, dark green, and she thinks that no, _that’s_ her favourite of them all.

She spots another apology dancing there on his tongue as the moment sinks in. The air around them thick and filled with the sound of their heavy breathing and yet he doesn’t step away, his hands don’t leave her, and hers stay pressed to his chest. The rapid thump of his heart on her fingertips and she’s holding it in her hands. Just as he’s been holding hers all this time without even knowing it.

“Don’t you dare,” she manages to say, because she knows what’s coming next but then Rip surprises her all over again.

He presses his forehead to hers, as he huffs out a laugh, “If you would have just let me finish my sentence, Captain . . .”

She slides one of her hands up, curls it around his neck, fingers slipping in under the collar of his shirt, biting on her lower lip as she waits for the rest.

She raises a brow as the seconds grow longer, and a smile tugs at the corner of her lips.

He shakes his head at her, before taking a breath and finishing what he started. “What I was going to say was that I’m sorry about before, _but_ ,” and he hushes the beginnings of her protest with a finger against her lips, and she can’t even bring herself to be mad, “it wasn’t that I didn’t want to kiss you. I just didn’t want an audience.

“But most of all, Sara,” he continues, voice a low murmur between them, “I’ve _wanted_ to kiss you with or without the bloody mistletoe for a very long time, I just wasn’t sure whether you wanted me to.”

And to think it was doubt and a lack of communication that nearly derailed them.

Just like always.

And well, she thinks, as she pulls him down by the collar of his shirt to press her lips to his once more, she can’t have that happening ever again.

He grins against her lips as she makes her point.

“Merry Christmas, Sara.”

“Mhmm,” she smiles into the kiss as she pushes him back against the wall.

_It is now._

 

*

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*

 

Sara never does find the _Mistletoe Bandit_ as Rip dubs them.

In the weeks after, when questioned, they all deny it.

Nate, Jax, Ray, Martin, Mick, Amaya and Zari.

All of them.

(Except, it’s Ray who started the whole thing off with the mistletoe in the galley doorway, because “Hey, look! Mistletoe!” and it’s Christmas, and “Oh come on guys, where’s your Christmas Spirit?” he’d said to Mick’s growling face and Sara’s laughter.)

(Martin, in his defence, had only been trying to help. And so okay, he’d got a little fed up of having to deal with Jefferson’s jittery nerves every time Miss Tomaz entered the room and so had decided to do something about it. In any case, he’s pretty sure Miss Tomaz has her eyes set elsewhere and he was only saving him the heartbreak. It had been a completely noble, pure-hearted venture. _Honestly_.)

(Nate didn’t mean to put the mistletoe in the training room. Okay, so yeah, maybe he did. He just hadn’t planned for Amaya to find Sara under it. It was supposed to be him and _damn it_ , he should have known he’d get the timing all wrong. Although, it seemed like he wasn’t the only one to get an eyeful, as he’s pretty sure he spotted the back of a familiar brown coat flying down the corridor and running away from the scene. Which, _yeah . . . his bad._ )

(Zari had found the random sprig lying in the middle of the corridor and really should have left the damn thing there or thrown it down the garbage chute. But then Jax had spotted it and suggested putting it in the office, and Amaya had argued it to be too obvious. In the end, fed up of the squabbling, she’d picked a room at random and left it in the med bay for whichever unlucky soul found themselves in there next. _God_ , _what a bunch of children_.)

(Mick thinks they’re all idiots, especially English, and it was about damn time they got their acts together. But listen, he had _nothing_ to do with this mistletoe shit and he’ll burn anyone alive who even suggests it . . .)

_And yet, somehow, Sara doesn’t believe a word they say._

 

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**End.**

 


End file.
